Even so, Lord Jesus, Come Quickly

Matthew 24:36-44
36 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. 37 But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 38 For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 40 Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left. 42 Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. 43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. 44 Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Dear Jesus,

I believe Your promise of Your soon return.  People mock it.  People profane it. People ridicule it. People even treat Your promise with sacrilege. 

I saw a recent promotion of a seminary at a gay-pride event in Chicago.  The Chicago Theological Seminary, a ministerial training school of the United Church of Christ, distributed condoms at a gay-pride parade.  The condoms were packaged with a rainbow hued seminary logo of a flame, and the profane slogan, "The Second Coming."  

Such a tragic mockery of Your promised return grieves, offends, and angers me. But I sense that You are nonplussed by it all.  You just keep loving Your creation and calling us to repentance.  You want us to be ready for Your soon return, an event timed by the Father.  

Don't allow my hope for Your soon return to dim, dull, or wane in the midst of Your delay.  You delay that others might come to a saving knowledge of Your grace.  You want me to hasten Your return through evangelism of lost people.  

I choose not to speculate upon the time of Your Second Coming.  William Barclay wrote:  "It is, therefore, clear that speculation regarding the time of the Second Coming is nothing less than blasphemy, for the man who so speculates is seeking to wrest from God secrets which belong to God alone.  It is not any man's duty to speculate; it is his duty to prepare himself, and to watch..."  We must never allow "our concern with worldly affairs, however necessary, to completely distract us from remembering that there is a God, that the issues of life and death are in His hands, and that whenever His call comes, at morning, at midday, or at evening, it must find us ready." (In The Gospel of Matthew, vol. 2, pp. 348-349).

Help me to live in a state of preparation, readiness, and expectation.  "Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly."

In the Name of my soon-returning Lord and King, Jesus Christ,

Amen.